Mark Beaver

4.5 for this excellent memoir. I'm biased for lots of reasons: Mark Beaver teaches English in a private school in Atlanta, just as I do, and I was a teenager in the '80s like him. I heard Mark read from this memoir--quite well, too--at the Decatur Book Festival. But what I loved about this memoir is how knowing it is about teenagers, about how vulnerable we are then, how afraid we are of appearing vulnerable, especially as boys. He finds irony and humor in just about everything without being cynical, and his self-deprecation is genuine rather than humble-bragging. Religion, angst, teenage lust, social awkwardness, Southern-ness, race, cars, and '80s music all come together through Mark Beaver's strong, straightforward writing. A great, compelling read.… (altro)